Alex123 wrote:Samsara is imperfect and we can never live in a perfect world.

But we shouldn't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.There are lots of good things we can and should be doing.

Kim

Hello Kim,

I agree that we should take care of the environment and to use it as respectfully as possible. We should, when possible, reduce un-needed excess consumption. Sure.

"Life is a struggle. Life will throw curveballs at you, it will humble you, it will attempt to break you down. And just when you think things are starting to look up, life will smack you back down with ruthless indifference..."

This website systematically debunks every myth you have propogated. For instance, the link you have concludes:

Human CO2 emissions upset the natural balance of the carbon cycle. Man-made CO2 in the atmosphere has increased by a third since the pre-industrial era, creating an artificial forcing of global temperatures which is warming the planet. While fossil-fuel derived CO2 is a very small component of the global carbon cycle, the extra CO2 is cumulative because the natural carbon exchange cannot absorb all the additional CO2.

Alex123 wrote:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide

This site never says that CO2 is insignificant. Do you understand the difference between trace and insignificant?

This site shows a steady increase in atmospheric CO2. I fail to see how this supports anything you have said.

Alex123 wrote:

Buckwheat wrote:The living beings at that time had millions of years to evolve to those conditions, not decades as we a about to force upon this great Earth.

And living beings will have to evolve today as they did millions of years ago.

You are missing the salient point: evolution requires millions of years to adapt to changes, and even longer to adapt to large changes. A sharp increase in temperatures would not lead adaptation, but to extinction for most species.

Alex123 wrote:Do you expect CO2 levels to keep linearly increasing year after year?

No, I do not. Who said such a thing?

Alex123 wrote:Even if CO2 levels got higher, is it certain doom? No. Dinasaurs and plants lived quite well with 1,000ppm-7,0000ppm and temperatures DID NOT crash through the ceiling, meaning that there are some mechanism that prevents earth warming.

Did you look at your own chart? The climate was much hotter, dryer, and more extreme (meaning long periods of droubt punctuated by severe floods). And a sudden change in climate (caused by an asteroid impact) is what killed off the dinosaurs. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesozoic

Alex123 wrote:

Buckwheat wrote: If all other varibles are held constant, increasing CO2 in the atmosphere will increase temperature.

When CO2 levels were 7,000 the temperature was only 10C higher.

Oh, so you did look at your chart to see that higher CO2 is correlated to higher temps. Please cite a source saying that such a difference is insignificant. It seems to be quite the contrary: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesozoic

Alex123 wrote:sources of the chart writte

Buckwheat wrote:

Alex wrote:Look at the trend of black line, CO2. It is incorrect to call it trending up and being catastrophic.

Nowhere on this site do I see the author jumping to the same conclusions as you have. Please show me specifically where he says that current climate change is either insignificant or not-anthropogenic.

Alex123 wrote:Interestingly, CO2 lags an average of about 800 years behind the temperature changes-- confirming that CO2 is not the cause of the temperature increases. References:

Historical Isotopic Temperature Record from the Vostok Ice Core

The data available from CDIAC represent a major effort by researchers from France, Russia, and the U.S.A.

1) Vostok ice core: a continuous isotope temperature record over the last climatic cycle (160,00 years).

polarbuddha101 wrote:It is the safer bet to act as if anthropogenic global warming is an indisputable fact even if you think otherwise. That being said, what does the individual do other than conserve energy (and use public transportation or a gas efficient car if you can afford one) and donate money or time to stop deforestation?

The problem is that it is not always convenient to do so. Try to switch off heating when it is freezing outside.

I lived through a Utah winter without a heater. The high temps were well below freezing. Although I did have excellent insulation, a large pile of blankets, and a dog to keep me warm. That was one cold winter.

On a more serious note: Switching off the heat is not being prescribed. Many people crank the heater so they can walk around comfortably in shorts in the middle of winter. The heat should be set at a level where you still need to wear warm clothes, and lie under a blanket when sedentary. Also, using the most efficient methods of heating, improving insulation, filling leaks, these are all reasonable steps.

Alex123 wrote: Try to use over crowded public transportation to carry groceries.

Been there done that. Yes, it is somewhat difficult, but nothing compared to the difficulty of not having grocery stores because AGW caused severe droubts that kill all the crops.http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/

Alex123 wrote:As for deforestation. Even to build new land for vegetables, windmills, solar panels, etc - that can require clearing up space from trees.

Even if some solar panels are built over water, even then there is disruption for the fish.

Yes, there will always be some human impact on the earth. But that does not mean we should stop trying to reduce our impact. This is even for our benefit.

Alex123 wrote:Samsara is imperfect and we can never live in a perfect world.

True that. But I don't think the Buddha condoned apathy.

Alex123 wrote:The above is based on faulty statement that CO2 causes warming. It does not."CO2 lags an average of about 800 years behind the temperature changes-- confirming that CO2 is not the cause of the temperature increases. "http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/last_400k_yrs.html

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-last-great-global-warming wrote:Global temperature rose five degrees Celsius 56 million years ago in response to a massive injection of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

That intense gas release was only 10 percent of the rate at which heat-trapping greenhouse gases are building up in the atmosphere today.

The speed of today’s rise is more troubling than the absolute magnitude, because adjusting to rapid climate change is very difficult.

Last edited by Buckwheat on Thu Mar 21, 2013 4:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Buckwheat wrote:Nice try, but your own posts do not count as a source.

I've used the site Kim gave plus other sites to check how much CO2 is in the atmosphere. Even using Kim's site I've calculated that our output into the atmosphere is 0.0014664% . To me, it seems to be too tiny, a noise. Natural variability is much much greater than that. Nature is much more powerful than us in this.

Buckwheat wrote: The climate was much hotter, dryer, and more extreme (meaning long periods of droubt punctuated by severe floods). And a sudden change in climate (caused by an asteroid impact) is what killed off the dinosaurs.

Dinosaurs lived very well and were huge until asteroid impact. It created lots of dust which blocked sun's rays, temperature cooled which made many plants die, and then herbivores and carnivores.

Buckwheat wrote:You are missing the salient point: evolution requires millions of years to adapt to changes, and even longer to adapt to large changes. A sharp increase in temperatures would not lead adaptation, but to extinction for most species.

How do we know that temperatures will CONTINUE to increase and not stall any year. We are still, as I understand, in the interglacial. The temperature rise was a bounce from temperature lows of Ice Ages. This is what I imply by talk about drawing liner temperature graphs.

the Late Ordovician Period was also an Ice Age while at the same time CO2 concentrations then were nearly 12 times higher than today-- 4400 ppm. According to greenhouse theory, Earth should have been exceedingly hot. Instead, global temperatures were no warmer than today. Clearly, other factors besides atmospheric carbon influence earth temperatures and global warming. http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/Carbo ... imate.html

If anything, that quote above nails the last nail for me. Link between CO2 causes temperature is overblown, thus ENTIRE AGW premise falls apart and I don't think that anything you or Kim says will change. Unless we can prove that data wrong. Period.

I am all for greener environment and to restrict pollution as much as realistically possible. Drive greener cars. Use as much solar power as possible. Sure. In this I agree with you.

"Life is a struggle. Life will throw curveballs at you, it will humble you, it will attempt to break you down. And just when you think things are starting to look up, life will smack you back down with ruthless indifference..."

the Late Ordovician Period was also an Ice Age while at the same time CO2 concentrations then were nearly 12 times higher than today-- 4400 ppm. According to greenhouse theory, Earth should have been exceedingly hot. Instead, global temperatures were no warmer than today. Clearly, other factors besides atmospheric carbon influence earth temperatures and global warming. http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/Carbo ... imate.html

If anything, that quote above nails the last nail for me. Link between CO2 causes temperature is overblown, thus ENTIRE AGW premise falls apart and I don't think that anything you or Kim says will change. Unless we can prove that data wrong. Period.

That's a rusty nail.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordovician wrote:At the beginning of the period, around 485.4 ± 1.9 million years ago, the climate was very hot due to high levels of CO2, which gave a strong greenhouse effect.... but over time, the climate become cooler, and around 460 million years ago, the ocean temperatures became comparable to those of present day equatorial waters... The late Ordovician glaciation event was preceded by a fall in atmospheric carbon dioxide

Still, if at 4400 ppm of CO2 the climate can be as cold as today, then what prevents this scenario from repeating in the future?

Maybe all the catastrophic thinking that "as CO2 levels reach sky high levels the temperature will heat up, ice poles melt, and coastal cities drown" a bit too over blown?!

We don't know:1) for how long and how much CO2 levels will increase2) if the temperature will keep increasing. I read a lot of news and some news seem to suggest that temperature increase has stalled.3) If higher temp and/or CO2 level is such a bad thing. Long time ago I was in a museam and saw remains from ancient fly and dragon fly. It was bigger than a bird! How did it get so fat?! Life obviously did well when temperature was on average higher by 10C and CO2 was many times the current amount (up to 18 in Cambrian). I believe that extreme weather events can occur in different types of climate regardless of CO2 levels.

That temperature rose a little bit to me is not strange at all considering we are coming off lows from last Ice Age. Of course temperatures can bounce back. I'd rather have higher temperatures than earth getting back into Ice Age. Current temperatures seem high ONLY if you compare them to lows from Ice Age. If you compare current temperatures to average global temperature during mezozoic era and other similar era, current temps are too low.

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"Life is a struggle. Life will throw curveballs at you, it will humble you, it will attempt to break you down. And just when you think things are starting to look up, life will smack you back down with ruthless indifference..."

Buckwheat wrote:Except that a basic assumption of Moore's law is that you are working diligently to develop the technology, not sitting around hoping for a miracle. So in order to set Moore's law into motion, we would have to take climate scientists mitigation efforts seriously starting right now.

While I haven't directly contributed to climate control technology, I have made small contributions to other areas of technological development.

So much urgency... must act right now or else doom! For that to be an effective argument you would have to conclusively show that there is a clear problem now. As has been stated, temperatures have been flat for more than a decade. There is not a problem at present and there may not be a problem for a very long time, so this false urgency isn't helping matters.

There are real problems of deforestation, pollution of the oceans with metals and plastics, etc. There are also many people suffering, in hospice, homeless shelters, etc. that could use help right now. Those are things that do not involve speculation and are IMHO worthy of one's time and effort.

I do spend time volunteering with various charities. I don't sit around doing nothing, waiting for miracles to solve everything as you have implied. I just feel that talking about charity work would be too close to bragging, so I usually don't say anything. Above all I have been trying to put my practice first and foremost in my life. I seem to have a hard time communicating that.

Buckwheat wrote:That approach costs much, much more in the long run.

Except that I posted information that showed mitigation later would cost less. It is also a technological/economic/military inevitability that we humans will build climate control technology and deploy it globally, which will render all of this debate over climate moot. I greatly look forward to that day.

Last edited by poto on Thu Mar 21, 2013 9:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." -- C. S. Lewis

Science wrote:During the Ordovician, solar output was much lower than current levels. Consequently, CO2 levels only needed to fall below 3000 parts per million for glaciation to be possible. The latest CO2 data calculated from sediment cores show that CO2 levels fell sharply during the late Ordovician due to high rock weathering removing CO2 from the air. Thus the CO2 record during the late Ordovician is entirely consistent with the notion that CO2 is a strong driver of climate.

Alex123 wrote:We don't know:1) for how long and how much CO2 levels will increase

Science wrote:There are many lines of evidence which clearly show that the atmospheric CO2 increase is caused by humans. The clearest of these is simple accounting - humans are emitting CO2 at a rate twice as fast as the atmospheric increase (natural sinks are absorbing the other half). There is no question whatsoever that the CO2 increase is human-caused. This is settled science.

Alex123 wrote:2) if the temperature will keep increasing. I read a lot of news and some news seem to suggest that temperature increase has stalled.

Science wrote:For global records, 2010 is the hottest year on record, tied with 2005.

Alex123 wrote:3) If higher temp and/or CO2 level is such a bad thing. Long time ago I was in a museam and saw remains from ancient fly and dragon fly. It was bigger than a bird! How did it get so fat?! Life obviously did well when temperature was on average higher by 10C and CO2 was many times the current amount (up to 18 in Cambrian). I believe that extreme weather events can occur in different types of climate regardless of CO2 levels.

That temperature rose a little bit to me is not strange at all considering we are coming off lows from last Ice Age. Of course temperatures can bounce back. I'd rather have higher temperatures than earth getting back into Ice Age. Current temperatures seem high ONLY if you compare them to lows from Ice Age. If you compare current temperatures to average global temperature during mezozoic era and other similar era, current temps are too low.

Science wrote:Here’s a list of cause and effect relationships, showing that most climate change impacts will confer few or no benefits, but may do great harm at considerable cost.

AgricultureWhile CO2 is essential for plant growth, all agriculture depends also on steady water supplies, and climate change is likely to disrupt those supplies through floods and droughts. It has been suggested that higher latitudes – Siberia, for example – may become productive due to global warming, but the soil in Arctic and bordering territories is very poor, and the amount of sunlight reaching the ground in summer will not change because it is governed by the tilt of the earth. Agriculture can also be disrupted by wildfires and changes in seasonal periodicity, which is already taking place, and changes to grasslands and water supplies could impact grazing and welfare of domestic livestock. Increased warming may also have a greater effect on countries whose climate is already near or at a temperature limit over which yields reduce or crops fail – in the tropics or sub-Sahara, for example.

HealthWarmer winters would mean fewer deaths, particularly among vulnerable groups like the aged. However, the same groups are also vulnerable to additional heat, and deaths attributable to heatwaves are expected to be approximately five times as great as winter deaths prevented. It is widely believed that warmer climes will encourage migration of disease-bearing insects like mosquitoes and malaria is already appearing in places it hasn’t been seen before.

Polar MeltingWhile the opening of a year-round ice free Arctic passage between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans would confer some commercial benefits, these are considerably outweighed by the negatives. Detrimental effects include loss of polar bear habitat and increased mobile ice hazards to shipping. The loss of ice albedo (the reflection of heat), causing the ocean to absorb more heat, is also a positive feedback; the warming waters increase glacier and Greenland ice cap melt, as well as raising the temperature of Arctic tundra, which then releases methane, a very potent greenhouse gas (methane is also released from the sea-bed, where it is trapped in ice-crystals called clathrates). Melting of the Antarctic ice shelves is predicted to add further to sea-level rise with no benefits accruing.

Ocean AcidificationA cause for considerable concern, there appear to be no benefits to the change in pH of the oceans. This process is caused by additional CO2 being absorbed in the water, and may have severe destabilising effects on the entire oceanic food-chain.

Melting GlaciersThe effects of glaciers melting are largely detrimental, the principle impact being that many millions of people (one-sixth of the world’s population) depend on fresh water supplied each year by natural spring melt and regrowth cycles and those water supplies – drinking water, agriculture – may fail.

Sea Level RiseMany parts of the world are low-lying and will be severely affected by modest sea rises. Rice paddies are being inundated with salt water, which destroys the crops. Seawater is contaminating rivers as it mixes with fresh water further upstream, and aquifers are becoming polluted. Given that the IPCC did not include melt-water from the Greenland and Antarctic ice-caps due to uncertainties at that time, estimates of sea-level rise are feared to considerably underestimate the scale of the problem. There are no proposed benefits to sea-level rise.

EnvironmentalPositive effects of climate change may include greener rainforests and enhanced plant growth in the Amazon, increased vegitation in northern latitudes and possible increases in plankton biomass in some parts of the ocean. Negative responses may include further growth of oxygen poor ocean zones, contamination or exhaustion of fresh water, increased incidence of natural fires, extensive vegetation die-off due to droughts, increased risk of coral extinction, decline in global photoplankton, changes in migration patterns of birds and animals, changes in seasonal periodicity, disruption to food chains and species loss.

EconomicThe economic impacts of climate change may be catastrophic, while there have been very few benefits projected at all. The Stern report made clear the overall pattern of economic distress, and while the specific numbers may be contested, the costs of climate change were far in excess of the costs of preventing it. Certain scenarios projected in the IPCC AR4 report would witness massive migration as low-lying countries were flooded. Disruptions to global trade, transport, energy supplies and labour markets, banking and finance, investment and insurance, would all wreak havoc on the stability of both developed and developing nations. Markets would endure increased volatility and institutional investors such as pension funds and insurance companies would experience considerable difficulty.

Developing countries, some of which are already embroiled in military conflict, may be drawn into larger and more protracted disputes over water, energy supplies or food, all of which may disrupt economic growth at a time when developing countries are beset by more egregious manifestations of climate change. It is widely accepted that the detrimental effects of climate change will be visited largely on the countries least equipped to adapt, socially or economically.

poto wrote:So much urgency... must act right now or else doom! For that to be an effective argument you would have to conclusively show that there is a clear problem now. As has been stated, temperatures have been flat for more than a decade. There is not a problem at present and there may not be a problem for a very long time, so this false urgency isn't helping matters.

poto wrote:There are real problems of deforestation, pollution of the oceans with metals and plastics, etc. There are also many people suffering, in hospice, homeless shelters, etc. that could use help right now. Those are things that do not involve speculation and are IMHO worthy of one's time and effort.

I do spend time volunteering with various charities. I don't sit around doing nothing, waiting for miracles to solve everything as you have implied. I just feel that talking about charity work would be too close to bragging, so I usually don't say anything. Above all I have been trying to put my practice first and foremost in my life. I seem to have a hard time communicating that.

Great!! Sorry to force you to brag However, Moore's Law applies to the chip industry, who are driven by profit motive to develop the newest fastest technology now, before the next company beats them out. That's a lot different than saying we should worry about AGW later.

poto wrote:

Buckwheat wrote:That approach costs much, much more in the long run.

Except that I posted information that showed mitigation later would cost less. It is also a technological/economic/military inevitability that we humans will build climate control technology and deploy it globally, which will render all of this debate over climate moot. I greatly look forward to that day.

What I'm saying is that one article by a technology journalist, whose goal was to draw attention to some radical ideas, is not anything like a fair analysis that trumps the time honored adage: an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. If you have some hard evidence, I would love to see it.

I am not against adaptation methods (per say, each method has it's own pros / cons, as does every energy generation method). From my understanding, we will need mitigation and adaptation. These are not mutually exclusive. We also need to protect the environment. We also need to feed, clothe, and educate the poor. The reasons are twofold: 1) basic humanity, 2) a healthy, educated population is more adaptable to changing conditions.

BINGO! It is solar output that plays a big role, even bigger role than merely CO2. So your site rejected the simplistic idea that it is only CO2 that drives the temperature.

Your quote:

While CO2 is essential for plant growth, all agriculture depends also on steady water supplies, and climate change is likely to disrupt those supplies through floods and droughts.

Higher temperature can mean more water is evaporated from oceans and thus more rainfall. So it is not as black-and-white.

And as for heat waves, etc, - again solar output as your AGW site says is important. Humans can't affect solar output. Even if CO2 levels are high, but solar output is low, the Earth's temperature would still remain low.

What prevents sun from lowering its output soon, thus cancelling out disputed effects of CO2 on warming? Maybe it is speculation that there is crisis in the future.

I could go on, but I think this is enough for now.

"Life is a struggle. Life will throw curveballs at you, it will humble you, it will attempt to break you down. And just when you think things are starting to look up, life will smack you back down with ruthless indifference..."

Science wrote:Over the last 35 years the sun has shown a slight cooling trend. However global temperatures have been increasing. Since the sun and climate are going in opposite directions scientists conclude the sun cannot be the cause of recent global warming.The only way to blame the sun for the current rise in temperatures is by cherry picking the data. This is done by showing only past periods when sun and climate move together and ignoring the last few decades when the two are moving in opposite direction.

Alex123 wrote:So your site rejected the simplistic idea that it is only CO2 that drives the temperature.

Nobody ever made such a claim that CO2 is the only variable to global climate.

Alex123 wrote:Your quote:

While CO2 is essential for plant growth, all agriculture depends also on steady water supplies, and climate change is likely to disrupt those supplies through floods and droughts.

Higher temperature can mean more water is evaporated from oceans and thus more rainfall. So it is not as black-and-white.

During warm periods, such as the Mosozoic Era (Dinosaurs), the climate is characterized as hot and dry with occational torrential downpours that cause flooding. the reason for this is that in order for precipitation to occur, the water must evaporate and then cool in order to condensate into rain. In a very warm climate, the water vapor just stays in the air. Water vapor is another greenhouse gas, so more water in the air equals more heating. It's called a feedback loop. But because there is so much vapor in the air, when it does rain, it is torrential, causing flooding.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesozoichttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_cycle

Buckwheat wrote: Nobody ever made such a claim that CO2 is the only variable to global climate.

We can't control other options such as solar output, or dust between sun & earth, or some other astronomical event (such and such tilt of earth) so it is not our fault in that area. We can't be certain that IF CO2 will go up, the temperature will go up.

I've read a number of article that temperature has stalled. It is not going up, and as you might know - in the 70s there was a fear about global cooling, which is strange to even propose when people claim that there is Global Warming happening.

Also there are plenty of news such as:

Global warming appears to have stalled. Climatologists are puzzled as to why average global temperatures have stopped rising over the last 10 years. Some attribute the trend to a lack of sunspots, while others explain it through ocean currents....

"It cannot be denied that this is one of the hottest issues in the scientific community," says Jochem Marotzke, director of the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg. "We don't really know why this stagnation is taking place at this point."http://www.spiegel.de/international/wor ... 62092.html

So your temperature graph is not so scary after year 2000. I do hope we don't fall into an Ice Age. That is far bigger problem.

"Life is a struggle. Life will throw curveballs at you, it will humble you, it will attempt to break you down. And just when you think things are starting to look up, life will smack you back down with ruthless indifference..."

I dont care! sorry if that sounds harsh but my practice tells me to live in the moment and find equanimity, illusions come and go! if i think about our poor beautiful planet burning up with everyone on it its just an illusion, but also if i think of 500 years of peace and happiness its also an illusion, best i try to live in the moment, love my family love this beautiful planet and tolerate those who chose a different path. If i had to entertained the question though. i dont believe this planet is doing anything other than changing like the universe law says. And the masses of people who cant stand change are panicking and labelling it to try and make themselves feel better.best just meditate and be happy, on that note.Be happyknighter

CBS News last night reported that the migratory bird flyway territories and game bird reserves/ park grounds are in a drought state even thought the Spring thaw is supposed to bring record flooding due to heavy snows this year (2013). Seems peculiar to say the least.

What Makes an Elder? :A head of gray hairs doesn't mean one's an elder. Advanced in years, one's called an old fool.But one in whom there is truth, restraint, rectitude, gentleness,self-control, he's called an elder, his impurities disgorged, enlightened.-Dhammpada, 19, translated by Thanissaro Bhikkhu.

Ron-The-Elder wrote:CBS News last night reported that the migratory bird flyway territories and game bird reserves/ park grounds are in a drought state even thought the Spring thaw is supposed to bring record flooding due to heavy snows this year (2013). Seems peculiar to say the least.

I was surprised to hear anything about heavy snowfall in my region, so I read the article carefully. I did not read anything about heavy snowfall. Klamath is a bit north of me, but most of northern California is well below normal snowpack.

PHILLIPS, Calif. (KCRA) —The snowpack levels in the Sierra are barely half of what they should be for this time of year, surveyors said Thursday.

This article is almost a month old, and we have had some precipitation since then, but not much.

Edit: I found some data. According to http://www.cnrfc.noaa.gov/monthly_precip.php Klamath Falls is at 54% avg to date (as of March 22, 2013). The areas around it are having at best an average year with 80-110% depending on the location.